Institute for Justice

Bad Apples or Bad Laws?

September 2014

Critics of civil forfeiture have long argued that allowing law enforcement to take property and pocket the proceeds creates incentives to put profits ahead of justice. Chapman University economist Bart J. Wilson and co-author Michael Preciado designed a cutting-edge experiment to see whether the rules of civil forfeiture in fact change behavior, and if so, how.

The results suggest that forfeiture abuse isn’t the result of a few “bad apples,” but bad laws that encourage bad behavior—it’s not the players so much as the game.

Press Releases

Press Release

Washington, D.C.—Imagine getting pulled over for a broken taillight or a forgotten turn signal, only to have your car and the cash you were traveling with confiscated by the police. As The Washington Post documents this week in an explosive three-part series, Stop and seize, exposing rampant abuse of forfeiture laws, that nightmare is an underreported reality…